


Lucy: Exposed

by slaysvamps



Series: Lucy Reynolds Chronicles [4]
Category: World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: F/M, Vampire: The Masquerade - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 13:29:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20258863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slaysvamps/pseuds/slaysvamps
Summary: Injured while carrying out her duties as the scourge of Flint, Lucy's true form is exposed. Unfortunately, so are her true feelings.





	Lucy: Exposed

_Everything is simpler than you think and at the same time more complex than you imagine._  
_ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_

I moved easily across the parking lot, watching bullet trajectories and keeping low. I followed Griffin, knowing that his instincts would unerringly find the leader of the rebels.

I watched in disbelief as he stopped directly in the line of fire from those on the south end of the parking lot to fight with one of the anarchs. I watched one raise his arm to fire a very large gun, and without thinking I threw myself between Griffin and the incoming bullet.

Agony exploded with the bullet in my side. I fell to the ground, dizzy and disoriented. For a moment I couldn’t remember what had happened. I laid on the pavement and stared up at the stars, remembering when my mother had first pointed out Orion to me when we stood together in the desert sand. I closed my eyes, missing her for the first time in nearly a century.

When I looked up, I saw Griffin crouched over me. From the surprise in his eyes, I knew he was seeing my true form. I looked away and healed myself as best I could. I knew it would still be a few nights before I would be back to my old self but pain no longer wracked my small form. I rolled away from Griffin, unwilling to face the pity I knew I would see in his eyes.

“Christ,” I heard one of the Gangrel mutter.

I shot him a hard look and he shut up. I stood, rolling my left arm to check the pull the wound had left on it. It hurt, but I could deal with the pain. I’d had worse.

I glanced up at Griffin, now only as tall as his waist. I heard a body hit the ground in front of me and looked down. One of the injured humans lay at my feet, dropped there by Jonas.

I knelt and lifted the man’s wrist, noting that he had been among the enemy. I felt no pity as I drained him dry, he would have died anyway by my orders. As I stood, I regained the guise of Avalon, and met Griffin’s eye for the first time. He frowned as if puzzled by my actions. I turned away and pulled out my cell phone.

Twenty minutes later the bodies and the blood were cleaned up and I drove back toward the M&M club.

~*~*~*~*~

I opened the door of my convertible, but a hand pushed it closed again. I turned with an angry comment on my tongue, only to swallow it when I realized it was Griffin.

“What do you want?” I asked him impatiently.

“Why did you do it?” he demanded.

I frowned and leaned my hip against the side of the car. “Do what?”

“Step in front of that bullet,” he said harshly.

I looked around to make sure no one else was near and crossed my arms under my breasts. “Look, it’s my job to protect the Kindred in this town,” I reminded him. “I knew that in that particular situation it was more important for you to be unharmed than it was for me to be. If you’d gotten injured, the Gangrel might have taken off. We needed them.”

He shook his head. “You don’t think it was more important for you as the scourge to be in control?” he challenged.

I controlled my temper with an effort. “Look, I’ve been here for the last fifteen years in one guise or another,” I told him, relieved to at least be this honest with him.

His eyebrows shot up. “Fifteen years?”

“Yeah, hotshot,” I replied angrily, “fifteen years. Stuart knows that I can do my job, and he puts his faith in my judgement to do it well. If he trusts me, who are you to doubt my abilities?”

“Who the hell have you been for fifteen years?” he asked, grabbing my arm.

I tried to shake his hand off. “I have been many different people,” I told him. “I still use some of those identities, do you think I’d tell you who they were? I’ve blown one of my covers, I’m not blowing any more of them. Or do you really think the Kindred of this town would listen to a ten-year-old street urchin from fifteenth century London?”

He stared down at me, apparently having trouble getting what I was saying.

I broke free and pulled open the car door. “Look, if you have a problem with me doing my job, you need to talk to Stuart,” I told him. I got into the seat and drove away, feeling his eyes on me until I was out of sight.

I drove a few blocks and pulled into an alley. I turned the car off and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. I knew that my feelings for Griffin would never be returned. He cared deeply for the Toreador that was living with him, and now he looked at me as nothing more than a child. An old child, but a child, nonetheless. This happened to me every time one of my alternate identities got close to him; we became friends and I always wanted more.

Not for the first time I cursed my mother for bringing me into this dark world while I was still a child. The hard part was that I knew she’d been right; everyone did trust children. My true form was perfect for infiltrating and spying on the enemy. Even as the scourge of Flint I could go places without comment that would have been very difficult for me in any other guise.

Still, some nights I longed to have an adult body. I had urges occasionally that I had no way to fulfill. And then there was Griffin. Perhaps if I had a woman’s body, I would have been able to make him see me as more than a friend. I sighed; there was no use wondering what might have been, I had to live in the here and now.

**Author's Note:**

> My gaming group has always played fast and loose with the White Wolf rules, including lots of things we see in various TV shows, movies and books. We were playing mostly in the late 1990s and early 2000s so we use/used the editions available at that time. 
> 
> We also threw all the 'By Night' rules out of the window and created our own rulers in our cities. Some of the cannon White Wolf characters may show up from time to time, but don't expect them to be like the books. 
> 
> I'll be separating these stories both by character and by city, so some stories may be listed under multiple Series under my profile here on AO3. 
> 
> If you're interested in learning more about our world 'After Dark' please visit my website at www.whendarknessfalls.net.


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